Connecticut western news., 1887-12-21
CANAAN, CONN, WEDNESDAY,

no man could hold him blamable if he should bear those first to place of safetyl
 Yet the path by the ridge was not the direct one to the factory settlements. Should he turn aside, there were hun- dreds of lives further down to be put in peril. When Jonah was sent to Ninc- veh what had been counted for him in the scale against the salvation of city of people9 What if the lives of Janet and the child were more to him thar the lives of the scores of neighbors and friends for whom God had commissioned him to make this sacrificed
 'Ts the servant better than his Loro that he should refuse to pay tho price demanded for the ransom of the manya" The words were thought rather than spoken as he dashed past his home. Every muscle he was straining to the utmost, but there were those about the mills who, marking his frantic gestures, came running to learn of him what they portended.
 s'The lake, the lake! Fly, fyw was the half articulate cry they caught from his lips.
 A wave of his hand toward the creek filling the mill wheels i,.erpreted the direful cry. From mouth to mouth it flew. There was hurrying to and fro, and gathering of treasures in hot haste. Messengers of warning gallopcd along the doomed valley. The weak, the old, were seen climbing the heights. Dwight's sacrifice had not been vain; but, his duty done, he had turned back to see if, haply, he might yet save his own treasures. The torrent was leaping against, and tearing at the abutments of the bridge as he rceled across 1t, and with spent strength clim bed the path to the cottage. Through the door he had a glimpse of Janet with the child era died in her arms, and above the roar of tho torrent he could hear the mother grooming her lullaby.
 'sMax, Max! Oh my dear, what is ita' He lay across the threshold ex- hausted. She stepped past him to the porch. Below the cliff the Otter was pounding the bridges supports. She had seen the stream as high once be- fore, though. What was it Max feareda A sound reached her as she waited. The detonation, sharply distinct, came from distance, but was immediately followed by horrible crunching and grinding, producing quivering in the ether about her. In the same instant, almost, she beheld, far up the Divide, a white wall rise up from earth to heaven ; it was as cliffs escarpment, scooped and bowed over, and, ponderous as it appeared, it was bearing down the gap at terrific speed. Janct's face blanche l., but it was brave smile she gave her husband as she lifted him into the room, and closed the door.
 'I know what it is, Max" she whis- pered as she sat down by him, with the child in her arms, and tenderly raised his head to her lap; 'it will not be hard for us to brave death together"
 The roar stupefed their senses; the ridge shook to it's foundations; the house quivered like an aspen, as tor rent descended upon it, and a pool o1 water, churned to froth, gathered about the group. They sat still, unheed- ing. What time the work of destruc- tion was wrought they knew not. Max crept to the door presently, but as he looked out he uttered cry, and turned l back to Janet. She hurried to him, and this was what they saw: sheer precipice dropping from their door into the turbulent waste of waters boiling along the length and breadth of th' lately smiling landscape of the Divide
 sThe idge is gore, and with it thu ridge has been clean shaven away up tt our very threshold, Janet, said Max awe-stricken.
 "Yes, the waves and pillows of destruction havo gone over us," sh' cried with thanksgiving of heart. "Bu oh, Max, what of the poor people at tn mills and in the villages2'
 He told her, shivering, how hc hae gone to them, leaving her and the littl one to perish. She stood for moment silent.
 "You would have perished with us & the last, tn 'ugh, my Max," she said her hands in his, ''only God in hi goodness has left us to each other. Le us accept His loving kindness as the re ward of your duty faithfully dono